The Mets have released Alex Cora and demoted Jesus Feliciano to the minors, tweets Adam Rubin of ESPN New York. Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first reported (via Twitter) that the team would be "bumping" Cora from the major league roster in order to make room for Ruben Tejada. Feliciano's demotion clears a spot on the roster for Fernando Martinez.
As David Lennon of Newsday points out (via Twitter), by releasing Cora, the Mets avoid seeing the 34-year-old's 2011 option vest. Cora needed to play in just 18 more games to trigger the $2MM option.
Better than nothing I guess. Although if F-Mart is just going to be a 4th outfielder I’d rather have him playing everyday in AAA.
He was underperforming, but Alex Cora is really one of the nicest players in Major League Baseball. I wish him the best.
Well, he’s another step down the road from “future coach or manager” to actual coach or manager.
Fred Wilpon should hire him today as the Mets new GM.
Hope the RED SOX pick him back up. Not much of a hitter but was a great clubhouse leader & solid defender.
The Mets are a sorry org. They release the only player who seems to have any fire left. I guess calling out teammates who are joking around, despite being on a losing streak, is going to get you released.
if you looked into that story at all…it was wrongly reported..and he was not calling out teammates at all, but rather, reporters who were not showing respect to the team in its own clubhouse
Even if that were true, you believe that’s worth $2MIL? Cora played 18 more games, the Mets owed him that vesting option of 2MIL.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Derp. .207 BA + .543 OPS, where’s the fire?
Step 1 of the 6 Step Process to fixing the Mets is complete. Next:
2: Release Frenchy
3: Release Castillo
4: Release Ollie
5: Fire Omar
6: Move Jerry back to being a bench coach and hire a new manager
I’d love to see Cora wind up managing in the Mets system. I think he’d be a great manager.
i still dont get the need to fire Omar…i def see these moves as more of a response to bad PR than actual moves to improve the club…the fact that tejada and f-mart will likely get LESS playing time and less opp to develop their skills shows this org is STILL a joke.
the fact that Hojo has not been reassigned or held responsible for the teams poor situational hitting is further proof that its politics as usual.
Jerry will DEFINITELY be playing Tejada and F-Mart a lot. Cora couldn’t hit or field anymore and there is no love lost between him and Castillo. F-Mart gives him a real option in the OF, not some 31 year old career minor leaguer or Francoeur. He’ll probably go back down when Bay comes back (if at all this season).
Firing HoJo would have been stupid. Hitting coaches aren’t necessary like pitching coaches. It wasn’t going to help the team. I don’t see how you think it was dumb to not fire HoJo but think Minaya should stay. First of all, he’s made horrible signings, Perez and Castillo. Trading for GMJ was a complete waste. Giving Cora $2M was stupid. Acquiring and keeping Francoeur also stupid. He wanted Joel Piniero which thankfully was prevented. Him calling out Adam Rubin at a press conference turned him into a village idiot. He was never great a public speaking, but he’s been even more inarticulate since then. He just comes across as a bumbling fool now.
The biggest critique is he NEVER made a deadline move to put the team over the top or in a position to make a run. If he had done that in 06, 07, 08, things would be a lot different. They might have won in 2006 and at least mad the playoffs 07 and 08.
First off, you have to look at Minaya’s moves in context…yes, he made 2 bad signings…but at the time he made those signings, his other options were exactly what?
derek lowe for more years and more money?…kaz matsui for the same years and same money ?….met fans that go ape-sh#t on Omar tend to forget the concept of context…now lets also remember….he gave those contracts 2-3 years ago…the wilpons have had ample time to cut these contracts and move on to other players and have refused to do so…As far as Hojo is concerned, we all know that any other hitting instructor would’ve been canned…the mets rank dead last in hitting with the bases loaded…and have done so 4 years straight…face it…if ANYONE else was the hitting instructor, they would’ve been gone along time ago…I actually think HoJo should be a base-running instructor or just move to another role in the organization, he was my favorite player as a kid and I always would want to keep him in the org in some capacity….
Minaya was bidding against himself for Perez and Castillo. No one else wanted them. There was no reason to give them the contracts he did. He’s made a lot of other bad signings, too. He gave Scott Schoeneweis the same contract he DIDN’T want to give to Chad Bradford. Kelvim Escobar and Tim Redding were complete wastes. He’s also had terrible draft picks like Eddie Kunz and Nathan VineyardI personally believe a hitting coach is completely irrelevant and firing them does nothing. Firing HoJo isn’t going to make Francoeur a better hitter. Way to cherry pick one situation statistic to support your argument. How about the fact that they hitting .323/.469/.615 with runners on 2nd and 3rd or .402/.391/.576 with runners on 1st and 3rd?
again…you skirted around my question…what were Omar’s other options? after their 2007 season, the mets had no 2nd baseman signed for 2008…the other options were kaz matsui…and david eckstein…eckstein was demanding the same amount as castillo…castillo signed first…also as a show of good faith to Johan Santana that the mets were serious about winning…the mets had traded for castillo in August…and he performed well for them down the stretch. After Castillo signs…then Kaz Matsui signs a similar contract with Houston, Eckstein signs a 1 year 5 mil deal…stinks up the joint in Toronto…gets traded for a bag of balls to Arizona…stinks up the joint there…goes to San Diego in 2009…Kaz Matsui gets injured ( shocker ) and stinks up the joint as well…so again…what were Omar’s options in the 2007 off-season in that context…
and your belief that hitting instructors are irrelevent completely fly in the face of logic…the fact that this team…which had different lineups from 08-09-10, has produced nearly identical results in clutch situations doesnt strike a chord with
you ?…the mets from the 7th inning on are 2nd to last….the mets with runners in scoring position and 2 outs are 2nd to last…the mets with the bases loaded are dead last…and this has been a trend going back to 2008…that is unacceptable
so if firing them does nothing…why do 30 teams waste money on hitting instructors…the mets are only keeping HoJo in that position to appease David Wright…if you dont think that, then you must not be paying attention to the politics on this team.
You missed my point. Yes, he didn’t have great options. But that doesn’t mean you offer ridiculous contracts to what is an option. Tell me, who else was after Castillo and Perez?
Hitting coaches are just an extra pair of eyes to help players pick up holes in their swings, get out of slumps, review video, etc. It’s still up to the player to execute. They’re not like pitching coaches who can make great hitters out of lesser talent. There is no hitting coach with the reputation of Dave Duncan.
Again, you’re just cherry picking certain statistics. Frankly, throw their entire 09 out the window. They had Daniel Murphy, Alex Cora, Raul Valdez, Brian Schneider, and Omir Santos playing regularly (as well as a completely bizarre year for Wright). Those guys weren’t going to hit regardless of the situation and the hitting coach.
HoJo probably is still here because of his history with the team. But firing him isn’t going to make Beltran healthier, or give Francoeur better plated discipline, or allow Castillo hit a ball over a fielder’s head
stop playing semantics…Omar had NO OTHER OPTION…the mets had no in-house candidates in 2007 ( remember valentin was injured and they traded for castillo ) …and there were no 2nd base candidates in the free-agent market…unless u consider eckstein/matsui as viable candidates ( considering castillo had the best 2007 year among all 3 candidates ) …
Hitting instructor’s typically are responsible for the team’s hitting/scoring performance…and yes there is a hitting instructor with a Dave Duncan type reputation ( Rudy Jaramillo ) …
and as far as taking 2009 out the window…how do you explain the drop-off from 2006…they went from hitting .326..to .276…to .220…to .210…to .215….how many one run games has this team lost ? they are 14-21 ….3rd worst record in the league…so yeah, if hitting instructors dont matter…exactly what HARM would come out of replacing HoJo ?
We’re arguing different things. I’m saying Omar gave Castillo and Perez bad contracts, which he did. I didn’t mind the Castillo signing but who else was going to give him 4 years? As for Perez, Randy Wolf was an option and he only signed for 1yr/$5M that offseason, much less than Perez.Jaramillo doesn’t have the reputation of Duncan. Has he ever made a below average hitter really good like Duncan? And I suppose it’s just coincidence that he was hitting coach of the Rangers who play in one of the most hitter friendly parks in baseball.Again, you’re just cherry picking a situational statistic, you don’t even state which this time. For the record, I want them to pick a new manager at the end of the season and have him choose his staff. I see no point in making any moves to shake up the team now. If they were going to do that, it should have been during that west coast trip. The best way for them to improve their hitting isn’t a new hitting coach, it’s to stop giving at bats to awful players like Castillo and Francoeur.
Again, you consistently ignore CONTEXT….Randy Wolf REJECTED a 3 year 28.5
million dollar deal in January of 2009…he then settled for a 1 year deal
in February AFTER the market dried up ( Lowe/Ollie were off the market )
…after an 11-7 season in 2009, he signs a 3 year deal 30 mil deal and is
having the worst season of his career…and to finally put the whole thing
to rest…a good organization is able to cut ties with players who are
preventing them from winning ( aka putting more fannies in the seats ) …so
i think we can all agree, ollie has not worked out….but his exodus out of
NYC should have occured the second he didnt accept a minor league
assignment, the fact that the org has not released him shows a serious
fundamental flaw in the way they handle business. its like wearing a shoe
you have already outgrown because u dont want to “waste” the money u
invested in them…u eventually replace them AND you are worse off later
with messed up feet…
Rudy doesn’t have the reputation of a Dave Duncan ? do a simple google
search on rudy jaramillo and see if u DONT come up with something that calls
him the best hitting instructor in baseball….why did the mets can Rick
Downs ( at the time considered a top hitting instructor ) in 2007…they had
gone on a 1 month hitting slump…were STILL in 1st place….and still
canned a man that helped develop Reyes and Wright as well as help Beltran
adjust….meanwhile the mets have displayed JOB like patience with
Hojo….onfield management has been guided by politics over the sake of
winning..i feel like im watching the knicks play baseball
Even the worst season of Wolf’s career is better than what Oliver Perez is doing. If they had waited out, they could have signed Perez for less or gotten Wolf for not much more.
The Mets should have never signed him to that deal. It was a bad idea then and it’s turned into a complete disaster. Again, the “fundamental flaw” was signing him, not releasing him.
He may have that reputation but it speaks more to other hitting coaches than him. Name one hitter who was mediocre at best that he’s turned into a very good one. Duncan has done it a lot.
They fired Rick Down because like most teams they think it’ll do something. I firmly believe nothing would have changed if they kept him. This team has a laundry list of problems that need to be addressed and the hitting instructor is close to the bottom.
had they waited out and lost out on Ollie AND Wolf, you would say Omar was asleep at the wheel. Same way all these history revisionist that were BLASTING OMAR for not signing Zito in the 07 off-season dissapeared when Zito was the biggest bust ( but lets not remember that )…or when Omar did not go after Jason Marquis…or when Omar did not go after Ben Sheets….where are ALL those fans now?
and no, they ( tony b. ) fired Rick Downs, because Rick was Willie’s ONLY hand-picked coach. tony was never a willie fan and wanted him canned as well. tony also influenced the minor leagues and MAJOR league hitting philosophy from 07-09 ( that retarded 80 pitch drill )
tony b. was selected because he had ties with the players union ( big reason why he had BEEF with Delgado ). Delgado got hung out to dry by Tony when he was in Toronto over the national anthem incident…..Neither one had ties with the other and Tony was undermining Omar from the jump. People assume just because both are hispanic that somehow thats why they are together. nothing could be further from the truth. its not a coincidence that the minor league system is lookin 10x better with terry collins at the helm.
And who hired Bernazard? Omar Minaya, a man you continue to defend.
..not every GM gets to cherry pick his staff…same way not ever manager gets to pick his staff…it is obvious that tony had more pull than omar did.
do u read what i type or just skim through it. those 2 had no history with each other.
also please lets ignore the 20 other points i made …
…what u fail to see, is that EVERY team makes a signing like this…EVERY single team has made a bust signing…including the beloved Theo and Cashman…the difference is, some teams eat the money by hiding that player in the minors ( aka Kei Igawa )…some teams bench the player ( aka Julio Lugo )…some teams release the player ( aka Andruw Jones ) some teams trade the player and eat the money ( aka GMJ )….the bad owners such as the Mets/Cubs, continue to do their franchise a disservice by playing bad players just because they are owed money. it’s like wearing expensive shoes that no longer fit ur feet just because u paid good money for them. So please, continue to ignore the fact that all these clubs make terrible moves but do NOT compound the problem by playing them to justify the move in the first place.
I’m not ignoring them. The Yankees and Red Sox just don’t sign players to incredibly horrible contracts like the Mets did Castillo and Perez. That’s why they’re able to move them for the most part. Maybe if the Red Sox just released Lowell, you’d have a case. But neither team has just released a player with a contract like Castillo or Perez’s.
“The Yankees and Red Sox just don’t sign players to incredibly horrible
contracts like the Mets did Castillo and Perez.”
umm..i guess u havent heard of john lackey…julio lugo….dice k..or carl
pavano…kei igawai…randy johnson… javy vasquez ( 2004) …jorge
posada…lol
the more u talk, the more u show u know next to nothing about baseball
look at the busts Cashman has to pay this year…
1 – Curtis Granderson – 5.5 mil
2- Nick Johnson – 5.5 mil
3 – Randy Winn 1.1 mil
4 – Kei Igawa – 4 mil
the yanks are eating igawa’s contract, already released winn, are eating up nick johnson’s contract, the only one still PLAYING is Granderson. Can you imagine the Yankees paying someone to handicap their team ( ala Ollie )…no…ownership knows that losing is bad business.
if cashman signed ollie and castillo, both players would’ve been released eons ago. and cashman gets to wipe the slate clean and replace both players.
They didn’t eat Igawa or Johnson’s contracts. They were able to keep Igawa in the minors since he was a rookie in 07. Johnson is on the DL for the year due to injury. They only ate Winn’s $1.1M. Granderson at least plays decent defense. Your comparison doesn’t hold up because Granderson and Igawa are still with the Yankees and haven’t been released despite making less than Oliver Perez alone.
hmmm…let’s see…the yankees invested 46 million in Igawai…( 26 mil signing bonus to his former team ) …and 20 million dollar contract…yet igawai rarely gets any burn on the major league roster…so what the yanks do? dump Igawai to the minors and invest again in CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett…problem solved !
Nick Johnson was injured for the year…Randy Winn sucked…so what do the Yanks do? trade for Lance Berkman and Austin Kearns…picking up all of their salary…wala…problem solved…
let cashman try that in queens, we would get stuck with igawai in the rotation, randy winn in lf, and nick johnson complaining that he has to play on 1 leg
“Jerry will DEFINITELY be playing Tejada and F-Mart a lot. ”
bwahahahahaahahaha
He probably does it to keep Castillo and Francoeur from constantly complaining and destroying the clubhouse. Why don’t you go back to being an Omar apologist?
riiiight…cuz it possibly has nothing to do with the fact that tejada looks bad at the plate and f-mart might be at the bottom of the totem pole…jerry NEVER has taken the future of the team into account and will do whatever it takes to win today…including rushing mejia to the majors and making him a reliever. Jerry himself has said he thinks he is STILL in a pennant race. The Mets are 10 games out of 1st…8 games out the wild-card…with a team ranked dead last in almost every offensive stat since the all-star break. the truth is, jerry is fighting to keep his job. but of course when u use ur foresight and get proven wrong, u have to make up some intangible fantasy as an excuse. lol
Castillo has been awful, too. The only difference is Tejada doesn’t have a pedigree to argue for getting more playing time.
Rushing Mejia was the entire organization, including your man Omar.
Of course he’s still going to say the team is in the race. There’s a difference between what you tell the media and what you think.
Ummm…so why did Omar tell the nydailynews that mejia was going to report to the minors as a STARTER….according to Adam Rubin
JUPITER, Fla. – Omar Minaya reiterated before Monday’s 11-2 win over the Marlins that the plan is for 20-year-old phenon Jenrry Mejia to open the season in Double-A Binghamton’s rotation.
Jerry Manuel says…
“Mejia’s No. 76. Frankie’s No. 75,” Jerry Manuel said, referring to Francisco Rodriguez. “They might follow each other down there. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. My goodness.”
Jerry was also trying to get Ike to start the season…he lost that one as Omar was able to convince the mets that they would save money by keeping Ike in the minors for 5 weeks.
at least know what ur talking about when u speak
They released the wrong infielder and demoted the wrong outfielder.
It’s not either or. They excised two of the right guys. Two down, two to go.
Cora had a an OPS in the mid .500s and was going to vest his $2 million option soon. Obviously, Castillo should be gone, but Cora absolutely deserved to go.
The problem is that BOTH Cora and Castillo deserve to go. However, the proper move was made because Castillo’s already guaranteed his $6MM next year, while Cora’s $2MM was able to be prevented.
The season is toast, at this point you might as well keep Castillo and see if you can convince any team to take him on in the offseason, no? Obviously, eating a ton of money. Even if you can only get like 1.5 million in salary relief, it beats outright releasing him, and a team might conceivably be willing to offer that since that’s bench player money.
Of course, that requires the Mets to be willing to eat salary, which they don’t generally like to do. Of course, so does releasing him, and that requires even more money.
This at minimum proves there is life…from the management.
Yea, releasing a player who has the respect of both sides in the club house seem smart.
Cora could have been batting .275 and he would have gotten released. Its all about the $$$ with the Wilpons.
How Omar keeps getting a pass after giving Ollie Perez $36 mil. over 3 years when nobody else want him for 1 yrs is beyonds me.
Alex Cora was due 2 million dollars next year, guaranteed, basically if he played another 3 weeks of baseball.
There is absolutely no way you can justify paying Alex Cora anything more than the league minimum.
The guy is a flat out awful baseball player. Maybe he’ll make a good manager some day, but to pay him 2 million dollars for his performance on the field is just beyod stupid.
He wasn’t hitting .275. Even if he did hit .275 he’d still be an awful baseball player.
There were literally half a dozen other players the Mets could have had for about 2 million dollars this year, and all of them much superior to Cora, and they chose Alex Cora. And they chose him as the first signing of their offseason, and they signed him for 2 million.
It was an awful signing, and I’m glad somebody got to Omar’s thick head not to compound the mistake, by bringing him back NEXT year for the same 2 million.
Anyone defending Alex Cora and his lack of baseball skills are insane.
Cora will make a good coach/manager some day.
The reason Cora was released is money.The reason the Wilpons have not given Castillo or Perez their walking papers is also because of money! They don’t want to pay two players while they play for some other team.No one can tell me that Castillo should be on the roster over Cora, even as poorly as Cora has played. The difference is that Castillo is making $6 Mil this year and next, Perez $12 Mil and the Wilpons don’t want to add ANY payroll. All they care about is huckstering the Mets fans into coming to their park, while making a half hearted act of competing. If they were serious about winning, they would have released both Perez and Castillo. These guys are dead weight, holding down the team and taking up two roster spots that could be used to actually help the team.
Obligatory comment about Cora being a great manager (Hell, let the Mets try him out in the organization in some form so they can get rid of Jerry Manuel soon.)
Obviously you havn’t familiarized yourself with the reply button since I’m sure that comment was directed to me. Here’s a hint- it’s the big button that says “reply”.
The time is now to blow it up.
You cannot build anything successful without a foundation.
Sure you have producers like Wright, Reyes, Santana but the time has come to build
supporting players around these guys – not role players with spotty performance issues.
C’mon WORST in the league with bases loaded.
I’m sorry but Omar must go.
Rebuilding a foundation starts at the TOP with leadership and good planning, not the bottom, but, I could be wrong.
I agree enthusiastically, except to say that the “TOP” as you call it, is not Omar. It’s Jeff Wilpon, Omar’s shadow counterpart & sometime puppet master…and I’m afraid there’s no moving HIM out of the picture any time soon.
He may end up on a serious contender as a solid middle infield backup player. It couldn’t get any better than that for AC.